Dear Memory
by vinnie2757
Summary: Prompt: Noodle's super soldier side gets reactivated, and wipes her memory of the boys, leading to her almost killing them before regaining herself. [Phase 3: post Plastic Beach]


**Title: **Dear Memory

**Genre:** angst, Phase 3: Wobble Street, lots of angst

**Character/Pairing: **Noodle-centric, Murdoc, 2D, Russel has a couple of lines but he's still a giant.

**Rating: **T

**Warnings:** language, violence, aaaaaaaaaaaaaangst

**Summary: **Prompt: Noodle's super soldier side gets reactivated, and wipes her memory of the boys, leading to her almost killing them before regaining herself. [Phase 3: post Plastic Beach]

**A/N: **Apologies for posting here instead of as an answer, it's like a billion words long. Also I love you so much, thank you anon! Enjoy, lovelies~!

**Dear Memory**

If she thinks about it, really, genuinely thinks about it, and doesn't have vague, rosy memories buried under the years spent scrabbling for some kind of purchase on something not burning hate, she would find herself surprised that it hadn't happened before, that she hadn't been – been – what is the word for it?

Triggered seems wrong, somehow, a word for another time, another feeling, another blind purpose.

Well, either way, she doesn't spare it the introspection to come to terms with, all things considered, how _lucky_ she'd been, in those early years, the empty corridors and vast beaches and cramped vans.

She'd been so lucky.

It's just a shame that luck doesn't last forever then, really, isn't it?

The boys are on the roof, talking over each other, and she wakes to the muffled sound of them bickering and bitching. Smiling, because it means they're _okay_ again, she hauls up out of bed, pulls on her robe, and pads into her bathroom, climbing onto the toilet to yank on the steam-sticky window to get it open. She's not really looking to join in the conversation, but she likes being able to hear them all talking over one another, ignoring and interrupting each other's sentences. It's a slice of home she'd not realised she'd missed as dearly as she had, and she wants to absorb every second of it, commit it to memory.

There'll be a time, she knows, as she scrubs her teeth and listens to 2D very adamantly arguing a point she doesn't really get about a band she doesn't really remember, that they won't have this bickering, this easy back-and-forth, because – because –

Well. Thoughts of mortality are not for – she checks her watch, still slung loose around her wrist (it had been 2D's watch, once upon a time, but it was hers now, stolen just like his old T-shirts) and it tells her that it's early, barely seven-thirty – such thoughts aren't for so early in the morning, not at all. So she pushes them to the back of her mind, and it's as she listens to Murdoc launching into some attempted extended narrative of the shoreline of Plastic Beach that she feels something clamping tight in her chest.

The passwords shouldn't work anymore, she tells herself, and stares at her reflection in the mirror. They shouldn't work, she made sure everything was deactivated. Stage three would never come to be, because the passwords had been locked away safely – having been under the impression of her faked death being successful, and her body hidden in water, she'd given the passwords to Murdoc, who had sealed them away in a lockbox only he had the key to. He had sworn he would never look at them, and she had trusted him, because she had no reason not to, and she still trusted him now, knew without the slightest hesitance that the passwords were still safely locked away with no possibility of being seen – and she had long since memorised them all. She knew the words off by heart, knew which words would activate which child – adult, now, she supposes, in their twenties. Maybe they have families, blissfully unaware of their past or their potential fate – and which would deactivate them.

Deactivation is a terrifying word.

It seems only fair, then, in that twisted, warped way Fate has, a cruel mistress to those who refuse to accept her presence, that in the chatter, her activation code is said. It's an accident, of course, and as the world seems to seep from around her like colour from a wet painting, slipping from her grasp and into nothingness of single-minded determination and burning need, she doesn't blame them. How could they have known? None of them knew the passwords, because she had refused to tell them.

Refused to tell who? Who had she refused to tell? What had she refused to tell them? Was it important? Surely it was, else she'd have never refused.

She stares at her reflection for a moment, the panda eyes of yesterday's makeup not quite removed all the way, bedhead and the kind of pale only achievable under the feeble English sun. Outside, filtering in through the window, a conversation goes on between – between – three men, all three talking over each other, interrupting and back-chatting. There's the clink of china, the click of a lighter igniting, the rumble of laughter. They sound happy.

It makes her sick.

She'd been in the middle of her morning ablutions, so she continues on with them, rinsing out her mouth and scrubbing her face until there's not a trace of half-removed eyeliner or green shadow and her cheeks are pink. Combing her hair out, she nods at her reflection, which nods back, rigid and frowning, before marching back to her bedroom to dress.

The laughter continues. Something falls from the roof, landing with a faint shatter on the pavement outside. She scowls at her wardrobe, filled with colour and dresses and soft cotton. She can't fight a war in this shit, and she roots until she finds a drawer full of jeans and another full of T-shirts. There, she thinks, they're suitable. Dressing with jerky, efficient movements, she pulls on a pair of trainers she finds at the bottom of her bed and slams the door behind her. Navigating the stairs, the treads covered in useless possessions and dirty socks, she makes for the door.

'Ah! Noodle! Morning!'

She narrows her eyes at the axe, considers. Turns back without yanking it from the wall. A tall man stands at the top of the stairs, leaning over the banister to look at her. He's grinning, dimples and missing teeth. Sickeningly attractive, the kind of media-perfect pretty boy beloved across continents for his thick eyelashes and his freckles. Her lip curls. His smile doesn't falter until she hasn't greeted him back, and then a crease forms between eyebrows barely a shade darker than his hair, his eye squinting.

'You alright?' he asks, and his voice is the single most irritating thing she has ever heard.

She shuts her eyes, takes a breath. She doesn't have the energy to expend on individual morons, complacent lumps, happy with their lot. She has bigger fish to fry.

'Noodle?'

Footsteps.

Her eyes open to find him crossing the landing and making his way down the stairs, all gangly, gazelle legs he barely manages to operate. He's taller than her by a good head. Looking at his face when he's only a couple of steps above her gives her a crick in the neck.

'Love, are you alright?'

He sounds concerned, and she feels a growl she isn't permitting rumble in her chest. Pursing his lips, he reaches for her forehead, to check her temperature. He must think she's ill. She's never felt more _alive_.

Two quick, easy grabs of her hands, one around his wrist to pull, the other in his armpit to brace, and she's throwing him back, over her shoulder, down the remaining stairs and onto the landing below.

He doesn't have time to make a noise, but the sound of him crashing, leggy and breathless, into the wall makes enough noise that there will be _reinforcements_ soon enough. She yanks the axe out of the plaster as she passes, steps over his heaped, stirring form, and continues down to the door.

'The fuck was that?' comes a yell from the roof. And then, '2D? Oi, faceache!'

She ignores it, and for some reason she can't begin to fathom, the door is locked. Who locks the door when they're awake? Why would she have a door locked? Why would she waste her time with that?

The thump of feet hitting long-abused treads as someone rushes down the stairs.

'Fucking _Satan_. You alright?'

What was the obsession with mediocre states of existence? What purpose did _alright_ serve? She yanks on the door, but it doesn't open, and she stomps without making a noise through to the back of the house, looking for another door, another way out. There must be one.

Voices upstairs, quiet, whispering. About her. She hesitates by a bowl of – are those ears? – and considers her options. They will have to be removed. The voices upstairs, not the ears. The ears can stay.

More footsteps. A whisper behind her ears, a familiar voice from centuries ago, a world long forgotten. Something swells beneath her feet. The shadows shift. A form rises from the darkness behind the fridge, something sickly thin and dripping, and she swings the axe. It lops off one oozing, black mass, but another forms immediately in its place.

She yells, swings at its core, hacks it in two and wedges the axe in the fridge in the process.

'Noodle!' A yell, more footsteps. How many footsteps could there be in a small place like this? Feet and feet and feet, a body crashing into the wall.

She wheels, but sees nothing.

The monster behind the fridge rises again, undeterred by her attack. It's from a hateful place, she knows, a place she has been, a place she knows but doesn't remember.

A battle cry, and she's bodily tackled, thrown to the floor and pinned. An attempted pin, anyway, because her feet are free, and her legs mobile. She presses a sole to the curve of a hip and pushes, sends her assailant sprawling back across filthy, peeling lino, chequered black and white like a display house. A rotting corpse left on display, a prime example of the disease the world bears.

Nausea curls deep in her belly.

'You again,' she snarls, and rolls to her feet, reaching for the axe still embedded in the fridge door.

'Noodle, no!'

He is such a problem, a very big, gangly, beautiful problem. There is blood dribbling from his nose, staining his lips and chin a perfect, flawless crimson. He swipes it away with the back of his arm, smears it across his cheek and stays on the floor. His leg is curled uncomfortably beside him, and she spares it a glance. A twisted ankle. Good. He can't run.

'Murdoc!' he yells, scrambles back as far as he can, but the kitchen is small, cluttered, and he crashes into the wall before he finds the door. 'Russel!'

Pop culture filters through her synapses, a flutter of taunts and one-liners and quips like endorphins in her veins, but she dismisses them all. War is not a game.

Another whisper, harsher this time. The smell of sulphur. She yells again, an incoherent scream of _rage_, and swings the axe. Before it connects, a hand grabs her arm, jerks her to a stop. It sears her skin, burning hotter than she should be able to bear, but it feels like a thousand pinpricks, static electricity flooding her arm. The man scrambles, and the axe falls where his head had been, clattering against the floor.

More hands, grabbing her, holding her still. Black like night, burning with red flames. She turns her glare up, watches a chapped, scarred mouth whisper words she, with her thousand languages, does not recognise. The man attached to that mouth is clenching a fist, shaking as he struggles to hold the illusion. Illusion? No, no, this is darker than that. Something fouler. Sulphur fills her nose, her lungs, and she hacks.

She shuts her eyes, breathes deep. The sulphur begins to recede as she stops fighting the hands holding her. The moment the grip loosens, she's tearing free, lurching forward and barrelling into him. The spell – the curse – the summoning – whatever it is, it's broken, his hand landing under her knee and knuckles cracking. He roars, but she's already moving, dragging him up by the tangled bird's nest of hair and slamming him into the wall. He's taller than her, but not by much, the arthritic curve of his spine bringing him level with her.

She snarls in his face. He snarls back, grabs her shirt, shoves her back.

'Murdoc, no!'

But Murdoc isn't listening, and he's nowhere near strong enough to go hand-to-hand with her. She sends him flying, crashing into the pretty boy still on the floor.

The key to the door stays in her hand, thieved from his pocket in the struggle.

'Noodle!' the pretty boy tries again, shoving Murdoc off of him to stumble to his feet, crying out at the weight that hits his twisted ankle. His weight shifts to the other foot, and he braces himself on the wall. 'Noodle, please. Please. What's happening? Talk to me, please.'

She gives him a once-over, cataloguing his injuries and the inch-short leg of his jeans, the loose hang of his T-shirt over his shoulders, the blood staining the front where it's dripped from his bony chin.

'What is there to say?' she asks, and she sounds too gentle. Straightening her shoulders, she watches the shadows, steps away from them when they begin creeping closer. Her lip curls. 'Whoever you are, there are no words to say. Not to you, not to this – this disease-ridden cesspit of a planet.'

'Who – whoever I am?' he asks, and lurches forward a few steps. She extends a hand, a loose fist, a warning. He stops, clutches at the posts of the banister to hold himself upright. 'Noodle, it's me. It's 2D. Don't – don't you recognise me?'

Her gaze flicks to Murdoc, who is just now managing to pull himself to his feet, in much the same state as 2D is. There is blood on the side of his face, and she feels like she's seen the image before. She has never been on the battlefield before, but she feels like she knows the curve of blood as it follows the dip of an eyesocket, the low curve of thuggish cheekbones, the hollow of rotten jaws.

'No,' he says, and looks at her.

She raises her chin.

'She doesn't recognise you, paper-brain,' he growls, moves to stand between them. 'She's – this is Stage Three, isn't it? Of your mission.'

She scowls, longs for the axe. Longs for something. She casts about for something, anything, that she could throw. She can throw faster than they can move, she's sure.

'Answer me,' Murdoc growls, and she drops her gaze for a moment before returning it.

'How do you know of the mission?' she asks, and Murdoc licks his lips, pulse jumping in his throat.

It would be so easy to tear it out, his pulse, and her knuckles crack.

'We know you,' he tells her, quiet, a gentleness that does not match the harsh lines of his face, the heat in his eyes. 'We've known you for over fifteen years. We first met you when you were eight. Mr Kyuzo sent you to us, to keep you safe.'

She snarls, because how _dare_ this – this – corpse of a man – how _dare_ he breathe that name?

'Safe?' she demands, and backs into the wall. 'I have no need to be safe. I have a mission.'

Murdoc glances at 2D, who is shaking. She watches the jump of his pulse too, interested only in ripping it out just as much as she is Murdoc's. Then his attention is back to her.

'The mission was – it was cancelled,' he says. 'The Japanese government figured you were too volatile. Kids as weapons? That's not a good idea. It's still not a good idea. They were going to de-commission you. He saved you.'

She doesn't believe him, and lunges for the nearest sharp-looking object. It's a rusting, filthy table knife, but it'll do the job.

'Noodle!' 2D yells, and she aims for him, throws as hard as she can.

Murdoc is faster than he looks, and the hands grab at her again as he grabs the knife from the air, uses the momentum to swing back, throw it back at her. The hands yank her out of the way, and it sails over her head, hitting the wall before clattering to the laminate.

'What the hell's going on?' a rumbling voice yells.

'Fuck off, Russ!' Murdoc bellows back. 'I've got it under control!'

'You _never_ have it under control!' Russ shouts, and Murdoc fixes his gaze on her face, waves the hands away.

'Stop fighting us,' he says, 'stop fighting us. Listen to me.'

'I have no need to listen to your _lies_,' she spits, and meets him in three strides, shoves at his chest.

He staggers back, manages to steady himself on the wall, and she follows.

'Listen to me,' he snarls, and shoves back against her.

She's barely surprised in the least, and kicks him in the shin, slips past him to get back into the kitchen and grab the axe.

He moves to stand between her and 2D again, but 2D is shoving him out of the way with a quiet, 'let me try.'

'You're going to get yourself _killed_,' Murdoc warns.

He isn't wrong.

'Listen,' 2D says, and he sounds as terrified as he looks. Her knuckles burn as she grips the axe. 'Just – just listen, yeah? We're in a band. Us, and Russ up on the roof. He's too big to get in the house right now, 'cause – 'cause he ate something funny, it made him grow into a giant. We're in a band, the four of us. We were nominated for four Grammys.'

'Five,' Murdoc corrects.

Her glare shifts to him, and he shrugs, but then 2D is still talking, and she has to watch him. If he comes within reach of the axe, she's swinging, and she'll have his head.

'Five Grammys. We – we got four albums out. You play guitar for us. That's why you got sent. Muds put out a – an ad in the paper. For a guitarist. And you came. You were little then. Reached my hip, ha-ha! You were only eight, you didn't speak a word of English. Guess it was 'cause you'd – you'd had your memory wiped. To keep you safe. You found your Mister again, though! We broke up, the band, I mean, and you went back to Japan. You used to have real bad nightmares and knew you had to find out why you couldn't remember nothing. Sometimes – sometimes, you used to come and sleep in my bed with me, 'cause you were frightened of the crows. Where we used to live, there were crows. There were zombies too, but you weren't so scared of them. Used to do this really cool karate kick and take their heads off! It was wicked!'

She backs up when he takes a step forward, and when he runs out of banister to support himself, he stops, leans against the wall, babying his injured leg. He wipes more blood from his face, and smiles at her.

'You came back, though, we all did! You wrote an album about – about what you'd found out. About the things you saw. The world. You used to say it was diseased. We all hated celebrity. Pop culture. You wrote the album about it.'

'I – I wrote the album?'

He nods, enthusiastic. 'Yeah! It was the best album we ever made! It was why we got the Grammy nominations! Everyone was so impressed! And you were still little. You were like, thirteen, I think? It's – it's been a long time. We broke up again. I thought I'd lost you. There was – there was an accident. I thought you'd died. We all did.'

He gives Murdoc a dirty look here, and she almost cares about the way the latter shifts, uncomfortable.

2D takes a breath, puts weight on his bad ankle, steps forward. She lifts the axe, but he doesn't seem threatened.

'Noodle,' he says, and she backs up another step. 'You came back again though, recently. We were in a bad place, on this shitty island Murdoc sprayed pink. There were pirates attacking us, and you came and you saved us. Do you remember? Russel brought you with him, because he'd found you on a ship, and you came and helped us beat the pirates.'

'Pirates,' she whispers.

The axe wavers.

'Yeah,' he says, smiles some more, 'you saved us. I almost died. But you and Russ saved me from a giant whale.'

She scowls. 'You're lying.'

'I'm not lying,' he says, and he sounds so _earnest_.

The nausea rises again, but she beats it down with a threatening swing of the axe, swinging just short of his belly. He's undeterred, and reaches out to touch it, push the red steel down, out of his way so he can limp closer.

'Don't,' she breathes, backs up into the table. 'Don't touch me. Don't come near me, you're a fucking _liar_. I'm not – I have a _mission_ – that's all I have, don't.'

'_Stuart_,' Murdoc warns, but 2D isn't listening, he's _right there_, so close that she can smell his body spray and mouthwash when he says her name again.

'Do you remember?' he asks her, and his hand curls around the handle of the axe, gently tugs until she lets go before he drops it on the floor.

She is in no way defenceless, of course she isn't. How can she be defenceless? She was trained in every martial art, every kind of warfare. She could kill him in a hundred ways right now.

His fingers are so warm when they touch her face, cupping her jaws. His fingers are so long, brush her hair, her ears. Her breath stutters in her chest and he leans in to meet her eyes properly.

'It's me,' he tells her, as though she should _know_, and her pulse skyrockets, heart hammering against her ribs. '2D, you remember? I sing in our band. We used to sing together. You did the singing on a couple of our songs. You remember?'

Something stirs, not – not a memory. It's not a memory, but – a – a – a feeling, perhaps. A sensation. Warmth in her chest, her belly, a familiar longing she could never place. He looks at her, and she thinks she sees blue in his eyes, behind all the murky, blackish-red. The faintest spark, like a candle in the dark.

'When you were little, and you had nightmares, I had to sing you lullabies. You tried to sing along sometimes, but you weren't very good at talking English back then.'

Her heart _hurts_, aching in a not-good way, and she screws her eyes shut, tries to stop listening. His voice is so gentle, so earnest, but so _grating_, the most irritating sound she's ever heard, and she tries to focus on that, on the anger that boils whenever he opens his stupid, pouty mouth, but his thumbs are rubbing against her cheeks.

'Don't cry, sweetheart,' he says, sighs, breathes. 'You're alright, you're alright. I've got you.'

She's not crying. It's a malfunction of her tear ducts is all. Excess fluid. She doesn't cry. She _doesn't_ cry.

He smells of blood and her cheek is wet, not from tears, but from the damp spot on his T-shirt where his nosebleed had dribbled. He's warm, swamping her in his arms, his chin on her crown. He hushes her, and she grasps at handfuls of his T-shirt, sobs into his chest, listens to him hum platitudes, lullabies.

'You're alright,' he assures her, and rocks her a little, side-to-side. 'I've got you.'

'Stuart,' Murdoc says, but it's not a warning now. He sounds a little in awe.

'It's alright,' 2D assures him, 'go tell Russ. I've got her. She won't hurt me.'

Murdoc's presence lingers for a moment, a swirling mass of indecision, but then he hurries up the stairs and back onto the roof.

She stands in 2D's arms until there are no more tears to cry. Slowly, he lets her go, hands on her shoulders, neck, jaw, holding her face so she has no choice but to look at him.

'Hey,' he says, smiles. She thinks she could have been in love with that smile once. Maybe she still is. It's hard to tell.

Her heart slows, her shaking stops.

'Hey,' she whispers back.

'You remember me now?'

Her hands knead against his chest, pulling the cotton of his T-shirt, and he lets her pull him, holds her again.

'It's alright,' he tells her for the hundredth time.

She breathes him in; he smells of butterscotch and cigarettes and blood and a body spray that's so generic it's almost painful. He's warm and too thin and his heart beats against her ear, a metronome she used to count sheep to.

'Chee,' she whispers, and he stiffens for a second.

'Yes,' he says, runs a hand through her hair, 'yes, that's me.'

She presses a hand against her face, rubs at the inner corner of her eye.

'What – what happened? Oh _God_,' she groans then, smelling the blood and pulling back to look at him. 'Oh God, did I do that? Chee, I'm so sorry – I – I'm sorry, I don't – oh _God_.'

She touches his face, where bruises are blossoming and his nosebleed is finally clotting. He doesn't seem to notice her touching the yellowing marks on his cheek, and she cups his cheek, a tidal wave of guilt hitting her full force in the gut.

'I'm so sorry,' she whispers. 'I could have _killed_ you. I could have killed you.'

'You didn't, though,' he says, and turns his head to kiss her palm. 'You didn't. I knew you wouldn't. We're a family.'

She looks at him, and he looks back. Up on the roof, Russel shifts, talks. She can just about make out what he's saying. She should go and see him. The nausea swirls in her belly, bubbles up into her throat.

'You're alright,' 2D tells her again, and she aims for a smile. Misses. But it's okay, because he smiles enough for them both.

**NOTES::**

You can see the **black and red hands** in the 7 Ways to Die in Kong Studios video on youtube. Headcanon that Murdoc made a deal to get some demonic shit lurking in the walls to protect Kong from intruders, but they still lurk in Plastic Beach and Wobble Street, they're just left alone enough there that they don't really come out of the shadows.

The **fifth grammy** was actually Dangermouse's for the production on Demon Days, but Murdoc totally counts it as one for the band.

All the details about **super soldier Noodle** are taken from RotO.

Noodle **totally had a crush **on 2D when she was little, and she totally still feels it sometimes.

Man this prompt got well away from me, gomen. It was not how I was planning on dealing with it, but I guess the boys had their own idea of how to get their girl back.

**The full prompt was**: (after plastic beach) maybe where noodles super soldier side or whatever gets reactivated? and her memory of the boys just vanishes and she ends up almost killing them but gets out of the funk or whatever before she does? idk lmao im feeling angsty and i saw a headcanon about it soooo why not? and ur one of the best gorillaz writers ive seen so!

I'm still crying, what a compliment to get.

**Thanks for reading, lovelies~!**


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